So I am headed to one of my restaurants and I am reflecting on why I can’t seem to make the headway fast enough to make this the best operation in the industry. I think to myself, “Self, you have been doing the same thing you always do in these situations and it works, what is happening here?”Being the introspective fellow I am I mull it over and over and over. Can’t find it in that big ole noggin of mine. Then the revelation comes, I’ll just ask. So one by one I talk to the managers, the hourlies, and heck anyone I can pose with the question, “What am I doing wrong here?” Slowly but surely I begin to hear the same notion…”Andy, we are doing our best too and that isn’t good enough!”
Uh oh….I don’t know what to do, they don’t know what to do…now we are in big trouble. So all my vast years of mentoring, coaching, debate, and thought provoking leadership leads me to this, “I better start at the beginning and see where I went wrong.”
Question: Do we have enough food coming in to the building?
Answer: We have been struggling with that issue. Our orders don’t seem consistent and we have to shop locally to keep up with what we are short on.
Diagnosis: No one knows the ordering system process and I hadn’t bothered to check and make sure they knew how to order, I assumed
Question: Do we know how to make the food that matches the recipes and the pictures?
Answer: Well Andy we are making it just like the last guy showed us, right?
Diagnosis: Food Quality has eroded over time with the lack of follow up and training and I was silently approving of the plates I saw every time I visited, I assumed they were going over this
Question: Do we have enough people and do they know how to serve the guest?
Answer: We have the most tenured staff writing our schedules and they do a pretty good job of getting people in here and we really don’t get that many guest complaints
Diagnosis: Trouble here, the inmates are running the asylum and the standard of guest service is being measured by how many people are upset versus how many are happy. I assumed everyone knew what to do with the guest.
I have fallen into the leadership trap of ASSUMPTION. I assumed that the institutional knowledge that existed would keep the business running strong. I assumed that the management knew exactly what to do and were just performing poorly. I assumed that everyone knew exactly how important the guest was and took care of them with high expectations.
Yeah, Yeah, I know, assuming makes an “ass” out of “u” and “me”
Cure: Back to the Basics of what we serve, who we serve, and who serves it. Bring your team together, honestly communicate where you as the leader went wrong, and start over.
People don’t wake up and think to themselves, “Boy I am going to do a really crappy job today” they just get led that way. Learn from my mistake. There are only three kinds of people in the world:
Don’t know – teach them (this is most of them!)
Don’t care – move on, nothing to see here!
Can’t do – move on but even in my experience in the business, I can count the people that belong in this category on one hand….
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